By Anne-Marie Kovacs, Chief Wife
I’m a wannabe locavore (that means eating locally produced food all year round). But, living in the Midwest, it’s just not practical. I need food with color all year round, not just in the summer.
With farmers’ market season rolling in, I can play the locavore part  - for a few short months at least. I get ambitious strolling down the market, poking fruit and veggies and asking questions on how to prepare obscure produce such as garlic scapes or salsify. All this freshness is so tempting that I invariably stock my basket with much more than my family can [...]

By Anne-Marie Kovacs, Chief Wife
My 10 lbs clown-of-a-dog Toy Poodle is actually a real scaredy cat. As much as he’ll let any visitor to our home know to “beware” ’cause he’s watching them, he’s also the best snuggle-bunny when he’s just with us. And, he also turns into a nervous mess as soon as the skys thunder in the slightest. It does seem that his anxiety has gotten worse with age (he’s celebrating his 9th birthday this week).
I discovered the ThunderShirt at the International Housewares Show this past March and got a sample. I knew I wanted to try this on Skippy [...]

By Audrey van Petegem, Chief Editor
You may already be familiar with these handy little Stick-Um!, but, for me, they were an Uh-huh moment and I find them just brilliant! As the namesake states, UM! is the first sound made when you have an epiphany. And each of their products are genius solutions created to make our life a little bit more organized.
Each product uses nano-suction technology; meaning that there are millions of little suction cups that allow the products to stick to a clean, flat surface. When you touch them they feel sticky but really it is just all these [...]

Every home needs a set of these: the FixnZip™, a replacement zipper slider to easily repair broken zippers.
How often have you discarded or stopped using garments or other products because the zipper slidder was damaged? The sleeping bag, the windbreaker jacket, the backpack… You hope can magically find the replacement zipper (in the right size, right color. Good luck.) and get it fixed at a cost lower than that of the original product. Hummm. What are your chances?
Forget all that. You can now quickly fix zippers with the FixnZip.  Without tools or needles, all you need to do is figure [...]

By Audrey van Petegem, Technical Writer
If you have never heard of Lekue you’re in for a treat. This company was one of the first to embrace the wide use of silicone. Silicone, an odorless, colorless substance that is found naturally in sand, quartz and rocks, has been around for decades, but it is just within the last five years that we are seeing it everywhere. And for obvious reasons.
Silicone is light, flexible and comes in a variety of bright, delicious colors. It can withstand extreme heat and cold and therefore can be used in ovens, freezers and microwaves (it’s BPA-free, [...]

By Anne-Marie Kovacs, Chief Wife
I almost remember attempting to cook pasta in the microwave when the microwave was first introduced to the consumer market. What year was that? 1984? Ugh. I worked at my first “real” job at GE at the time and was very proud to be among the first microwave owners. There were so many gadgets and techniques thrown at us back then to get us to cook and bake eh-verr-y-thing in the microwave. I was never successful at anything but reheating and it’s been that way for the last – ouch – nearly 30 years.
That was the same [...]

My family and I are currently living at Taboo Resort and feel that we are having a long term vacation in the great Canadian white north (except for the working everyday and going to school part). It appears that we are the only ones that live here on a permanent basis and our townhouse clearly is not designed for anything but a vacation home.
We have moved most of possessions from our two homes into this one small space. It has been a challenge to be organized with so little storage space. The kitchen has been the hardest to organize since [...]

By Audrey van Petegem, Chief Editor
Recently I traveled with a couple of girlfriends where we shared a hotel room for several nights. Three women having access to only one bathroom is always a challenge. Particularly, three baby boomer women where the concept of “holding” goes out the window after the natural birth of the first child.
I was pleasantly surprised when we all pulled out our travel Poo Pourris!  We obviously shop at the same place. With names like Deja Poo and Daisy Doo or, for men, Heavy Doody and Trap-A-Crap, you may already have guessed that these are before-you go [...]

By Anne-Marie Kovacs, Chief Wife
My colleague, Chris Bradshaw, at BOOMboxNetwork.com, was the lucky one among us to attend CES this year in Las Vegas. She wrote about her favorite consumer electronic finds for baby boomers here. Fun stuff. Chris – like every other attendee, I’m sure – was overwhelmed by the amount of electronic “stuff” to be found on the near 2 million square feet of exhibit space and the ridiculous amount of smartphone cases available. She developed a real case of phone case fatigue… Still, she mentioned a few that I felt were too cool not mention here. And I [...]

So, how is your new year’s resolution to “eat clean” going? Probably not so hot around 3 or 4 pm, if like me, your energy level – and attention span – has you wishing the day was over. But noooooo. There’s still a mountain of things to do, errands to run and calls to return. Among other pressing matters.
Clearly, I need a snack, a picker-upper, a little edible energy. The easy fix is to pick up something easy & fast from the pantry or the vending machine. And we all know what hazards that holds. Those carb-filled, sugar-filled, fat-filled and [...]